This invention relates generally to a support and anchoring system for utility conduits. More particularly, this invention relates to a system, device and method for quickly and inexpensively supporting and securing multiple utility conduits, including, for example, cables, pipes, and other utility lines, to building structural members such as I-beams and other planar or curved structural members.
One type of utility conduit is often used to provide protection for electrical or optical conductors in wiring of residential, commercial and industrial premises. Depending upon the application, these conduits can protect the conductors from impact, moisture, chemical vapors and the like. The conduits can also offer the additional benefit of ease of changing electrical conductors, e.g., existing conductors can be withdrawn and new conductors installed. Various types of utility conduits are also used for the transmission of fluids and gases in residential, commercial and industrial structures, generally referred to as pipes.
Various types of utility conduits are commercially available, such as those commonly known as electrical metallic tubing (EMT) conduits (most commonly made of steel), flexible metallic conduits (FMC), steel or aluminum rigid metal conduit (RMC), steel galvanized rigid conduit (GRC), steel intermediate metal conduits (IMC), metallic conduits with a supplementary polyvinyl chloride (PVC) coating, as well as conduits made from non-metallic materials, for example, PVC conduits. Depending on the type of conduit used and the particular installation requirements, the trade sizes of conduit can generally range from ½″ to ˜4″.
There has been a significant increase in recent years in the use of conduits in both industrial and residential applications to encase electrical conductors, including power wiring, computer wiring, and communication cables, and for the transmission of fluids, such as oil or water, as well as for the transmission of gases. For a variety of reasons including safety and practicality, it is necessary to fix the conduits in an anchored position at installation sites, such as in factories, commercial structures, and residential structures. The conduits, if left unanchored, can become dislodged from primary anchoring arrangements due to play over their length, and thwart proper installation. Installation codes, such as local electrical and other building codes, normally mandate the use of certain conduit anchoring and hanging devices.
Various primary and secondary means for maintaining conduits and piping in fixed anchored spatial locations have been developed and have contributed to the state of the art. Thus, various hanging devices are frequently used for supporting the conduits from ceilings or overhead areas of factory, commercial, and residential structures. In such installations, the conduit hanging devices are typically secured to building structural members, including ceiling beams, overhead trusses, studs, and similar planar or curved structures, and the conduits are then secured to the hanging devices.
Building structural member surfaces on which the hanging devices are typically installed, particularly in factories and commercial structures, include planar structural members such as those known synonymously as I-beams or H-beams in reference to their I- or H-shaped cross-section. I- or H-beams are also variously referred to as W-beams (for wide flange), Universal Beams (UB), Rolled Steel Joists (RSJ), or double-T beams. The horizontal elements of the “I” are referred to as flanges, while the vertical element between the flanges is referred to as the web. Building structural members as used herein is not intended to be limited to members that structurally support the building, but rather includes any member that is attached to the building structure.
Often such conduit hanging devices and support systems are constructed from a combination of both prefabricated parts and non-fabricated parts to attempt to reduce on-site installation time and labor costs. The most common prefabricated parts include hanging devices include mounting clamps such as those commonly known as beam clamps and the like. Beam clamps are commercially available in various sizes and shapes, such as those referred to in the art as a C-clamp or an F-clamp in reference to their shape. Beam clamps generally possess a jaw opening and a fastening member, the latter member being a screw-type fastener, a spring-type fastener, a manual toggle-type fastener, and the like. By far, most types of beam clamps possess a screw-type fastener. Beam clamps also usually include one or more threaded holes. A very common, commercially available type of beam clamp comes with a threaded hole on the back side opposite the jaw and another threaded hole on the bottom side opposite the fastener.
In addition to the beam clamp, the hanging device also includes a conduit securing member such as a metal or non-metal strap or conduit clamp. Numerous types of straps are commercially available, such as those known as one-hole straps or two-hole straps. Common commercial examples include those referred to in the art as Minerallac conduit straps, Unistrut straps, universal conduit straps, and the like. The strap is attached to the beam clamp at one of the beam clamp's threaded holes via a fastener such as a screw. In its basic form, this combination of the beam clamp and strap makes up the conduit hanging device. Thus, the clamping member of the hanging device is clamped onto, e.g., the flange of an I-beam by tightening the fastener, and the strapping member is used to secure the conduit. To illustrate, FIG. 12 shows a perspective view exemplifying the common method currently used in the art to secure utility conduits 150 (represented by arrowed lines) to an I-beam 200 at the I-beam's flanges 201, using standard beam clamps 10 and securing members (not shown).
Additionally, non-fabricated components often include straps, rod, or flat stock that must be measured, cut to length, and sometimes further measured, drilled, and threaded. Even using a combination of prefabricated and non-fabricated components, assembly of the hanging devices and support systems is often slow due in part to archaic design considerations, complexity of components, and wide-ranging specific installation obstacles, spacing and location requirements. Also, poor lighting and/or hazardous conditions often surrounding such locations, and a generally unfavorable position of the installer with respect to the work being performed, make even the simple operation of installing the device a time-consuming and tedious task, resulting in increased costs and time delays.
Additionally, after the initial installation of the conduits, none of the existing hanging devices or support systems provide the ability to easily and inexpensively add additional conduit support members should the need arise at a later time to install additional conduits. Furthermore, in some installations where multiple conduits are crowded along a support strut, there is insufficient room on the support strut to mount one or more additional required conduits. Often, a second support strut is suspended below the first support strut to provide a surface upon which the conduit may be mounted.
Installation of a second support strut is expensive and time-consuming. Moreover, securing conduits is typically done by attaching the support systems to the edge (or flange) of the I-beams or structural members (i.e., only a small area of the I-beams or structural members is used) leaving unused, wasted space on the various surfaces of the structural members. Attaching the support systems to the edge very often prevents or blocks access to the void spaces on the I-beam or structural member should a need arise at a later time to install additional conduits. In the latter case, the installer would have to first disassemble previously installed support systems in order to carry out re-installation to accommodate the additional conduits, which is time-consuming and costly, and often creates safety issues. Other problems are often encountered by installers due to the presence at the installation location of rods, beams, brackets and other devices that interfere with and obstruct the addition of new conduits, pipes and support systems.
Support systems that have been devised in the art to overcome some of the above problems are often elaborate, complicated, costly, functionally limited, and lacking in versatility and simplicity. Following are some examples of some support systems to illustrate this point.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,520,476 issued to Caveney et al. discloses a cable support system that includes a hanger plate securable to a structure, a chaining plate attachable to the hanger plate, and a cable support member attachable to the hanger plate or the chaining plate. The structure includes horizontally disposed saddles to allow the cables to rest in the saddle, but does not attach or otherwise secure the cables to the device. This support system is complicated by the need for special hanger plates, chaining plates, and saddles, all of which are non-standard items and unavailable at supply shops. Furthermore, this support system is limited to vertical disposition by virtue of its design, and thus lacks multi-directional versatility.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,587,555 issued to Rinderer discloses a device to be mounted on a support member for holding a conductor in a substantially fixed position extending generally parallel to the support member. The device includes a bracket having an arm with at least one opening therein and a clamp having a head and at least one leg projecting from the head adapted for reception in the opening in the arm. The leg of the clamp is movable in the opening in a first axial direction with respect to the leg so that the head of the clamp can be pushed closer to the arm to move the clamp to a clamping position in which the head of the clamp is in clamping engagement with a conductor disposed between the head and the arm. The device further includes a retainer for retaining the clamp in its clamping position. The retainer includes a structure on the arm for biting into the leg of the clamp when the clamp is pushed to its clamping position thereby to lock the clamp in its clamping position by inhibiting any movement of the head of the clamp away from the arm after the clamp has been moved to its clamping position. There is no clamp provided to secure the device to a building support member, thus the device must be welded to the member, or holes must be drilled in the member to fasten it thereto.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,564,659 issued to DeCapo discloses a conduit hanging apparatus for securing conduit to a support strut having upper, lower, and side surfaces including a conduit clip having two compressible members depending from a base portion where each compressible member is disposed on opposite sides of the conduit. Each compressible member has a lower end disposed opposite the base portion and a recess disposed between the lower end and the base portion where the recess is configured to engage and retain the conduit. A strut clamp secured around a portion of the upper and lower surfaces of the strut is arranged to support the conduit clip and the conduit. Thus, the device cannot be clamped to a single surface of a support strut, but must encircle the whole strut. A fastening means is provided for securing the base portion of the conduit clip to the strut clamp. Also included is a clamping mechanism operatively coupled to the lower end of each compressible member to draw the lower ends together such that the recess of each compressible member provides a frictional fit to retain the conduit disposed therebetween.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0235596 by Youmans discloses a conduit-positioning device that maintains conduit in fixed relation relative to an anchor member. The device comprises a member-attachment interface and a conduit spacer portion. The attachment interface spans one side of the web and must attach to both flanges of the I-beam type anchor member. The attachment interface also comprises a fastener-receiving bore and the conduit spacer portion comprises at least one conduit-receiving clamp. The fastener-receiving bore extends from an anterior attachment portion to a member-engaging portion. The conduit-receiving clamp positions at least one conduit unit by clamping the conduit unit as the device is anchored to an anchor member by way of the attachment interface.
As can be understood, all of the foregoing support systems, and other support systems currently in use, suffer from one or more limitations and/or disadvantages, such as excessive complexity, the 3-dimensional bulkiness of their design, lack of adaptability, and/or the need to drill holes into the I-beams or structural members to install them (drilling holes into I-beams is generally undesirable). Additionally, some of these support systems call for specialty components such as special brackets, special chaining plates, special saddles and other parts that may be costly and/or not readily available. Moreover, none of those support systems offer the installer flexibility and adaptability in regard to multi-directional disposition of the support system and versatility to accommodate a variety of installation needs. Likewise, should a need arise at a later time to install new conduits in addition to existing ones, none of the foregoing support systems offer the ability to readily and easily access and use void, unused spaces on I-beams or structural members, or the ability to readily and easily go under, over, between, or away from existing installations to install the additional support systems. In the latter cases, the installer would have to first disassemble previously installed support systems in order to carry out re-installation to accommodate the additional conduits, which is a time-consuming and tedious operation, resulting in increased costs and time delays.
Accordingly, there is a need to develop new, practical, simple, versatile, low-cost support devices and systems for quickly and inexpensively supporting and securing multiple conduits to structural members, wherein the new support devices and systems allow the use of unused void spaces on structural members and allow adding installations between, under, over or away from existing installations without the need to disassemble the existing installations.